Kippers

We like to think we are in control, but that's a myth.
Can the world support 6.5 billion, plus all the new ones coming along soon...no way.

Why the hell are we fleeing to NZ anyway?................ Is it because we already know (subconsciously perhaps) that countries like Britain are f***ed.

Speculation has the population of the UK at over 100 million in the next century. Ha!
More like 5 million I would say.

Global warming is completely unimportant to the "World" as a system. It's been hotter before and survived.
The danger is to human-kind (and pets).

We are already using the equivalent of one and a half worlds worth of resources.
Now the break-down in 'growth at all costs' strategy as our financial and economic system starts to fail and resources dwindle.

Not to worry. The Good Ship NZ will sail on into the blue Pacific.

We just have to prevent some desperate, thirsty Ozzies from coveting our lands.

Kip

Izzy and Ian

We care..... in fact when we (finally) get to NZ it is our hope to be able to own a piece of land where we can 'grow our own' and use natural energy sources.

Not as some kind of 60's Hippy throwback, but as responsible people living a life of balance instead of one of 'want'.

When I was a child people took their own bag to the shop to carry home their (largely unpackaged) local goods. We didn't starve, we didn't feel deprived and we loved strawberries all the more because we couldn't have them everyday of the year (unless they were in the fabulous jam my grandma made).

I believe the planet has seen drastically altered weather patterns in the past, but there weren't billions of people living on it during the last ice age. Human beings need to live above water in a temperate climate with clean air to breathe, shelter from the extremes and food/water to nourish ourselves If being more considerate in the way we use natural resources extends this for future generations, then where is the hardship in it.

I'm not sure I believe in carbon off-setting or any of the other recent schemes to 'buy yourself out of guilt'. But I do believe that each of us is responsible to not abuse the planet that so well provides for our needs.... and for me that means recycle, reuse and reduce (a wave starts with a tiny ripple).

Off my soap box now

Tableland

Apparently planting more trees also increased global temperature, because the sun's rays bounce off of deforested surfaces and go back out to space, making the climate cooler. That's quite a conundrum for the global warming lobby.

If seeding clouds were this easy, why are we not deliberately seeding them over countries with droughts, etc?

Also, why are the ice caps on Mars melting at a record rate right now? It's not factories and 4x4s, I can assure you.

TeamEmbo

You'll love it here then. Loads to recycle and reuse - land of mend and make do!!! We don't have a large chunk of land, but we do grow our own veg and some fruit on what we do have and it tastes way better!

misterjingo

It's not as simple as this though, as trees are also a large carbon sink and so help reduce temperatures too. Also, the amount of reflection from tree foliage compared to white clour cover, and considering the differences in relative height makes trees much more preferable to increased cloud coverage.

Because increased cloud cover does not mean increased rain, and also because you have to consider cloud cover on a global scale in relation to the various atmospheric cells and jet streams. Such as there is increasing evidence that the devastating droughts in Africa in the 80's could be a direct result of global dimming and increased cloud cover changing weather patterns over the region.

Mars ice caps have nothing to do with earth due to atmospheric differences (mars having a very thin atmosphere) and magnetic field difference (mars having such a weak magnetic field the sun actively strips away its atmosphere on the solar wind). Also, we have very little data on mars ice cap over the millenia, where we have ice cores and such on earth going back millions of years to give us a more detailed climatic view.

Tableland

Gotta tell you jingo, I'm still not convinced. I do not doubt there is global warming, only that contemporary global warming is primarily caused by human activity.

Temperatures in the recorded past have been higher than our temperatures today, this is a fact. I want to know why temperatures were much higher in earlier pre-industrial centuries than they are now, and I would also like to know why there was a massive dip in temperatures during the 1970s, before pollution was subject to so many restrictions.

Maz

Does it matter if you're convinced or not?... Does it matter how it happens? Why not just do your bit anyway? How does that hurt anyone?

misterjingo

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying all global warming is a product of human activity, and whoever says that is a liar - I just feel from recent findings and models, humans are having an effect on warming (i.e. increasing it beyond what it would naturally be). What this means I don't think anyone can really say, as all models are based on subsets of data.

I agree there have been higher temperatures, there have also been mini ice-ages in recent history too. Many of these things have their cause in the movement of the earth. Earth not only rotates on it's axis, it also has a number of longer terms "wobbles" which change the earths orientation in relation to the sun. These would have a major impact on earths temperatures and climate too.
My personal opinion on this is that there is a noticible effect of human activity on climate, and with an exponentially increasing population, this effect is going to become much more pronounced. Also, the earth is a very complex system, so we cannot see the result of our effect in full just yet. It doesn't hurt me to be a bit more 'green', and I can't see that actively trying to reduce carbon emissions would harm the world any more than rampant unchecked industrialisation and pollution would.

Tableland

Well Maz, the reason it can hurt is because governments are deliberately making their populations hysterical about this in order to increase taxation, which I find insulting.

It's not like I go out of my way to pollute and waste as much as possible. I am a responsible person with a measured attitude to my life. However, I am aware that governments in the West are all drifting towards bankruptcy (not just the parties but the governments themselves), and increasing tax by manipulating decent people's emotions by nurturing a false picture of gloom about the environment is totally unacceptable behaviour.

misterjingo

I agree with you to a degree, but I don’t think the Government really needs to create such hysteria to increase taxes – although creating such hysteria (ala world terror networks etc) can have political benefits.
I also feel that the Government should be taking the lead in such carbon cutting (through various industrial legislations), rather than putting the bulk of the problem onto the general populace, and making them pay more for doing it.

Any economic system which relies on unending exponential growth (within finite resources) is always on the verge of bankruptcy - Perhaps in our lifetimes, or those of our children’s, we’ll see some radical changes to our monetary markets - or we’ll just start expanding outwards into space

Nerine

Green image....New Zealand just another advertising myth to attract the tourists?

The only reason NZ signed up to Kyoto is because it thought it could make some money out of carbon credit trading. Then it found out it'd got its calculations wrong and it was actually going to cost them money....big whoops and red faces when that emerged, the spin doctors had a few late nights on that one (How much is petrol per litre now?)

If NZ really wanted to boost its "green" image perhaps it should consider introducing effective emission standards for cars/catalytic converters instead of importing all of Japan's shonky cast offs?

As for global warming/An Inconvenient Truth? see the Dimmock v. Secretary of State for Education and Skills case held in the UK High Court a couple of months back.

There are nine basic errors in the film relating to issues such as the shutting down of the Gulf Stream in Northern Europe, melting ice and the creation of hurricanes.

Nerine

Interesting choice of words, when the good ship NZ sinks where will you go then?

Redlippie

Having just recently watched 'An Inconvenient Truth', this caught my eye. What was it about then?

Nerine

It's a good film and certainly caught my attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimmock...ion_and_Skills

Redlippie

Thank you.